Maggie Rogers - Heard It in a Past Life

Pitchfork 59

Three years after an encounter with Pharrell turned her into a viral phenomenon, the accidental star finally delivers her debut album, but her talents are eclipsed by overproduction.

The Guardian 40

(Capitol Records)

Maggie Rogers’ career has been buoyed by one song: Alaska, released in October 2016 after a clip of Pharrell Williams being bowled over by it went viral. Since then, Rogers has amassed three million monthly listeners on Spotify, done well-received live shows, and performed on Saturday Night Live, all with only an EP (and Bandcamp juvenilia) to her name. Now her debut album is here. Has it done justice to that evident promise? Unfortunately, what made Rogers stand out – a warmly idiosyncratic voice and a strong grasp of melody made less conventional with looping samples and unexpected beats – is still best showcased by her 2017 EP, Now That the Light Is Fading.

The best songs on this album are those that appeared on the EP, such as On + Off – with its woozy, insistent vocal layering set to soft dubstep. Alaska also appears, as it must, looming over the rest of the album. The song remains well-crafted, the satisfying union between music and lyrics marking it out as a cut above the average viral hit. But on the album, Alaska sucks the energy out of the songs positioned either side of it: certainly the mid-tempo groover The Knife and lighter-waving ballad Light On don’t put up much of a fight. But Rogers’ elegant knack for production is subsumed by more prosaic emotional balladry on her debut, with lyrics that rely too heavily on imagery of light and dark. Illustrating this tendency is the recent single Fallingwater, unmemorable for all the gospel touches and devoid of edge. Even this song, however – unremarkable in the context of the album – Rogers transformed into something truly compelling during her recent barefoot performance on SNL. She clearly has talent, but this album does its best to dim her light.

The Guardian 40

(Polydor)

While studying at New York University’s Tisch school of the arts, whose alumni include Lady Gaga and Childish Gambino, Maryland songwriter Maggie Rogers performed her song Alaska for her class’s mentor, Pharrell Williams. His intense reaction sent the clip, and the song, viral. Rogers’s wildly accelerated career since has been about riding and directing that initial rocket-boost, with disproportionate acclaim greeting her debut EP of electronic pop. Her Greg Kurstin-produced debut album, despite Pharrell’s tears over her “singular” style, in truth sounds all too familiar.

The dominant mood is plaintive, emotive, chilled alternative R&B of the sort popularised by London Grammar and their ilk, with a strong leaning towards the yearning synthpop of her friends Muna on Light On and Retrograde. The best songs – Give a Little, Say It, On + Off, lean harder into the hip-hop grooves, Rogers’s strong and soulful voice gaining a bit of grit. Overnight and The Knife, however, fall into melodic predictability, Fallingwater drowns a more interesting structure in ersatz gospel and Past Life, the overportentous, dragged-out ballad at the album’s heart, reminds you that viral doesn’t always mean catchy.